Word is that the Coal Men have cancelled their Saturday night show at Raleigh's Berkeley Cafe. Which means that you now have one less reason not to go see George Clinton at the Lincoln Theatre instead.

All after-school activities at Dare County Schools were canceled for today after heavy storms caused damage throughout the area early this morning. The decision forced Manteo and North Johnston to postpone their second round NCHSAA playoff girls soccer match until Saturday night at 6 p.m.

On Saturday at 11 p.m. (yes, that's at night), UNC-TV will air "Knitting Lessons" as part of its North Carolina Visions program. The 10-minute documentary film by Mary Dalton focuses on Mary Stowe — "the 'Yarn Queen' ... store owner (of yarns etc.../ Great Yarns), pattern designer, sales rep, and accomplished speed knitter." If you can't be with the knitters you love at that hour, DVR it to watch at your next gathering. Knit on!

I am almost regretting that I ever donated money to certain nonprofits. And thinking that way makes me feel horrible.

About a year ago, I answered calls from a few organizations that were raising funds for causes that I think are important. The pleasant-sounding callers asked if I could donate fairly small amounts of money — from $20 to $50 — to their nonprofits and offered to send me materials, along with payment slips and envelopes, in the mail. I told them that would be fine.

In all three cases, the mailings arrived less than a week later. I read the materials, wrote the checks and mailed them off, thinking that would be the end of it. I figured they would call us again maybe in a year or send us another letter some time in the future.

Then the calls started coming. Today, we get at least one call from one of these organizations a week. It’s always about the same thing: if we could donate more money.

Like I said, I think these nonprofits’ work is important and I want to support it. But I can’t afford to give nearly as much as they are asking.

On top of that, their constant calls have started to feel almost like harassment. Being asked to donate more and more has taken the joy out of philanthropy and, like I said, made me almost regret my decision to donate in the first place. And that, in turn, makes me feel bad and selfish.

I also think that if they called less often, maybe once or twice a year, I might actually be more willing to write another check since I wouldn’t be as weary of being asked again.

Our Web site will soon have two new features I am quite excited about. The first one, scheduled to launch May 14, is an online-only column. Three area residents will write about living in eastern Wake. A new column will be posted to the Web site every other week, starting Wednesday.

The columnists include Barrie Davis of Zebulon, who has done so many different things in his life, from flying airplanes in World War II to traveling the world, that I get exhausted just by thinking of them.

Jennifer Eddins of Knightdale is a mother of three daughters and a former high school English teacher who moved to eastern Wake in 1999 and says she loves living in “such a hospitable yet progressive community.”

Jen Earp of Wendell is a Florida native who has been a stay-at-home mother for the past three years. She loves music, books and movies, and plans to write about them in her columns.

The column, titled Route 64, can be accessed by clicking on an icon on our home page.

The other feature we have been working on is an online-only quiz. Since all three eastern Wake towns are currently in the middle of drafting their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year, we decided to create a quiz about how the towns spend their money. The feature, titled Dollars and Sense, gives you all a chance to see how much you know about town budgets.

Although I covered local government for years, I have to admit that I wouldn’t have known the correct answers to half of the questions. See if you can do better! The quiz will go live on Wednesday.

Like always, let me know what you think of these two new initiatives. And if you have ideas for other features or improvements, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Hey, didn't we have fun? Admit it. It was cool to see Bill hopping from small town to small town, scouring the countryside for Hillary votes. To see Barack in the Raleigh Times bar. To see Hillary at Wake Tech.
Notice I used their first names, because, for a brief, shining moment, we were like those people in Iowa and New Hampshire who get to know the presidential candidates really, really well for about two years before the first caucus or primary.

Nothing better than to have those network swells doing their standups in front of places that we pass by every day. To see a big huge honking headline in the New York Times about what's going on in North Carolina, because that's ground zero -- at least for a couple of weeks -- for the American political circus.

So now what? The only reason North Carolina mattered this year was an accident of history. Hillary couldn't finish off Barack earlier, and Barack couldn't finish off Hillary later. The Democratic presidential primary campaign became the equivalent of one of those epic movie brawls that start in the bar and wind up out in the street, and North Carolina was the street. Four years from now, North Carolina could be irrelevant again.

Unless, of course, North Carolina decides to hold its primary early in 2012, like, say February or March?

Sunday's Q will examine the pros and cons of that. We have the pro side from Marc Rotterman, a GOP media strategist, and the con side from Rep. David Price, a Democratic congressman. We also have a bunch of comments from citizens who responded to Q editor Van Denton's request early Wednesday afternoon.

We initially had another Q planned for Sunday on a different topic, but in the wake of Tuesday's primary, Van decided to call an audible. That's not easy to do, give our production schedule, to launch a new Q on Wednesday, but it helps that Van has assembled a growing pool of citizens who are willing to help us out by sharing their views with us in a short time window.

--Dan Barkin

Reader Richard Kevin was surprised by this front-page headline today, “Easley supports college for aliens,” on a story about the legal tussle over admitting children of immigrant families to state community college and university campuses. (The headline on the online story is different from that in print.)

Kevin said The N&O in the past has shown sensitivity to issues of the Latino immigrant community.

“Because of this history, I was all the more shocked and appalled to see ‘illegal’ aliens in your headline," he wrote. "Three instances of ‘illegal’ in the box to the right of the story and numerous uses of the term in the body of the story reinforce a distorted and pernicious frame of thinking about the ambitious and talented youth who overcome the many barriers to academic success which face poor Hispanic children. These children are no more illegal than are the children of speeders and drunken drivers who are in the car when their parents are arrested.”

When I read the headline, I thought the governor was supporting admission of little green people to the state’s campuses.

The N&O’s official style is “illegal immigrant,” which is too wordy for a headline. I share Kevin’s queasiness about describing children of immigrants as “illegal,” even if technically they are. It fosters an already excessively xenophobic mentality among too many of our readers.

Here's a column I wrote a few years ago about this labelling issue.

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican nominee for governor, is trying to break the curse of his four mayoral predecessors. Each of them – Eddie Knox, Harvey Gantt, Sue Myrick and Richard Vinroot – ran for statewide office and lost.

On this week’s “Headline Saturday” TV show, Charlotte Observer reporter Mark Johnson says there is no Charlotte curse. He says it’s something that media types talk about but is irrelevant to voters.

The N&O’s Ruth Sheehan and Rob Christensen disagreed. Christensen says North Carolina has long had a populist strain and that some voters recoil against fancy-pants mayors from the Queen City. Christensen describes this populism in his new book, “The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics.” To read more about the book, click here.

The show, which was taped today, is a joint effort of WRAL and The N&O. It is co-hosted by WRAL’s David Crabtree and me, and airs Saturday at 7 pm.
--John Drescher

It looks like you’re going to have to face the school board at this year’s transfer appeal hearings.

Ron Margiotta has been a proponent of a recent change in state law that allows school districts to appoint hearing officers for transfer appeal hearings. School board members rebuffed him though on Tuesday.

=> Read more!

After more than four hours of closed-door meetings yesterday, City Council members still aren't ready to offer the city manager job to one of three finalists announced last week.

"We’re still deliberating," Mayor Bill Bell said last night.

"Would we have liked to have come to a consensus before now? Sure, fine. But we’re not there yet for reasons I’m comfortable with."

Bell wouldn't go into detail about what those reasons were. He said in an interview before the first round of council deliberations last week that he had the finalists ranked 1, 2 and 3. "I suspect the rest of the council does, too," he said then.

Last night he wouldn't say whether his No. 1 matched that of the majority of council members.

Bell also has said that there's no guarantee the new manager would come from the slate of finalists. He wouldn't say last night whether the prospect of reopening the search was on the table.

Bell noted that Patrick Baker isn't slated to leave office until July 1.

"We have the luxury of not having to rush a decision," Bell said, though he added he didn't want to string the three finalists along more than necessary.

The council has scheduled another closed session meeting for Wednesday.

This week, TORC announced the Triangle MTB XC Series, a series of five mountain bike races at local venues, culminating with the championship in September. On the eve of the first race — tomorrow's Little River, Big Race at Little River Regional Park — Sean Callihan, the man behind the series, answers a few questions about the series and offers insight into what else may be in store for local mountain bike racers.

Q: Where did the idea for the Triangle MTB XC Series come from and who's behind it?
A: As you know there are some great local trails, including some relatively new ones such as Carolina North and Little River Regional Park. We (TORC) wanted to hold a couple races to highlight these trails. Happy Fun Racing had been putting on a race at Lake Crabtree County Park the past several years and Middle Ring Racing ran a race at Harris Lake last year. We all got together and decided to combine these races and run it as a local series.

The five-race Triangle MTB XC Series begins tomorrow (weather permitting).

Q: Tell us about your background as a race organizer, including the races you organized with the Cyclopaths.
A: I’m not really sure I would consider myself a race organizer. I just have a passion for racing and going to racing events. Some people have asked “why should I come to a race and pay to ride a trail I can ride for free?”. My answer is that it is just a different experience at a race. Whether you are racing for the first time or the fortieth time, there is just something about lining up with other riders, setting out to see how well you can do, and sharing the experience with your friends once it is over. Your goal might be to just finish the race, beat a previous time, or try to make it to the podium. Or maybe it is just to come out and ride with others who enjoy mountain biking. It really doesn’t matter as long as you are riding and enjoying the camaraderie that occurs at these events.

=> Read more!

In case some of you guys missed it, WakePol blogged earlier this week about the sales tax fight between the school board and county commissioners.

Commmissioners have accused the school system of costing taxpayers more than $600,000 through delays in transferring property to the county. School officials say the delay only cost $70,000.

The goal is to temporarily transfer ownership of school property to the county while construction work is performed. This allows taxpayers to take advantage of the sales tax exemption that counties, but not school systems, enjoy.

Click here for the WakePol post.

Click here for an WRAL story in which Commissioner Tony Gurley is out for the blood of the school district's attorneys.

The late Frank Zappa is said to have declared, "Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read." Two of those might be true -- but don't try to tell me Patterson Hood can't talk. In contrast to many of the terse-spoken folks I deal with, the Drive-By Truckers' spiritual leader is an absolute joy to interview. During a recent phone chat, the five questions I asked Hood yielded 40 minutes of talk about kids, the previous night's Springsteen show, firebrand politics and the real-life subjects of various Truckers songs, among other topics. Most of the conversation centered on the Truckers' latest album, "Brighter Than Creations Dark" (New West Records), which is named after a line in the song "Checkout Time in Vegas." According to Hood, settling on a title was the hardest part of making this record.

"We were thinking about 'Urban Bovine Kneivel,' a line from 'Opening Act,'" Hood said. "That was our second choice. But Wes Freed, who does our artwork, told us, 'I don't care what you call it, I'm drawing "Brighter Than Creation's Dark" because that's what I'm seeing.' So there it was."

For more, including talk about the Truckers' collaboration with soul goddess Bettye LaVette and their split with former bandmate Jason Isbell, see the interview in Friday's paper; and if that's not enough spieling for ya, click through to see a 2004 Q&A interview with Hood. The Truckers open a two-night stand at Carrboro's Cat's Cradle on Tuesday.

=> Read more!

Among their handful of restricted free agents, the Hurricanes have two that present a unique negotiating challenge: Tim Gleason and Tuomo Ruutu.

In Gleason's case, there's no question he's earned a substantial raise on the $1.175 million he made last season. The question is whether the two sides will look at a two-year deal that takes him up to his eligibility for unrestricted free agency or a longer deal that buys him out of a year or two of free agency.

"That’s been part of the negotiation," Rutherford confirmed Thursday.

Ruutu made $2.25 million last season, obviously more than the Hurricanes would like to pay for a player who, when everyone's healthy, slots into their third line (and a salary range of $1.5-$1.8 million, where Ruutu was in 2006-07). So some creative negotiations will be required there, although Ruutu could end up moving up the depth chart if the Canes trade a forward for a defenseman, which Rutherford has hinted he may do since the season ended.

Other contracts on the agenda this month, all restricted free agents: Patrick Eaves, Chad LaRose, Dennis Seidenberg. Any negotiations with Michael Leighton are on hold until June's hockey meetings, although he remains the front-runner for the opening as Cam Ward's backup.

Inspired by the recent closings of Red Palace and Tasca Brava, today's Chew on This! column in the N & O reflects on restaurants which have contributed something special to the Triangle by virtue of their going against conventional wisdom. I cite these restaurants as examples:

The Roast Grill, Raleigh - The granddaddy of no compromise, serving hot dogs grilled the old-fashioned way in a tiny shop that hasn’t changed since 1940. Still open for lunch only, and last time I checked, you still entered through a screen door. Don’t want a hot dog? You’re in the wrong place, because that’s pretty much all they sell. And whatever you do, don’t ask for ketchup.

Chops Steakhouse, Garner - A steakhouse that dry-ages its own beef on premises is rare, though I suppose it wouldn’t be too shocking to learn that one is opening in some trendy spot such as Glenwood South. But the outskirts of Garner? Where a dry-aged 14-ounce rib-eye will only set you back $26.95? Including sides?

Jibarra, Raleigh - In a region where, just a few years ago, avocado slices on your Tex-Mex combo plate were considered cutting edge, Jibarra’s elegant fine dining take on Mexican cuisine is daring indeed. And most welcome.

Piedmont and Rue Cler, Durham - After several false starts, it looks like the downtown Durham renaissance is finally for real this time. A lot of the credit goes to these two excellent restaurants, whose openings less than a month apart in late 2006 were the among the first signs of life in a long-dormant area.

Skipper’s Fish Fry, Apex - Talk about daring. How about opening a New England style fish fry in the heart of Calabash country? Fortunately, those of us who grew up believing in the sanctity of Southern style cornmeal-breaded flounder can assuage our guilt over enjoying cracker meal-breaded cod with a side of hushpuppies.

What do you think? Do you have any additions to the list?